Find objects

Objects search

Can't find what you're looking for? Try the search below.

Electrofusion apparatus used to create Dolly the sheep, Scotland, 1996

Click the thumbnails to enlarge

Dolly the sheep was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. The cloning process was jump-started using a pulse from this electrofusion machine at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. Dolly was created by taking the DNA from an adult sheep’s mammary cell which was then inserted into a DNA-free egg. An electrical pulse from this machine stimulated the egg and the donor DNA into behaving like a newly fertilised egg. The egg developed into a cluster of cells (a blastocyst) which was then implanted into a surrogate mother sheep.
Dolly was born in 1996. She later gave birth to a number of lambs. The name ‘Dolly’ was inspired by country and western singer, Dolly Parton.